Sunday, 29 January 2012

You know what really amazes/maddens me? Last week our national media made a great song-and-dance about the €1.25bn unsecured Anglo bond, but ignored completely the fact that on the Monday, Anglo also paid an unsecured bond of €30.7m. I mean, we couldn't do with that €30.7m for ourselves?

Coming up this Friday, another unsecured Anglo bond, this one for €20m, and an equally unsecured €20m from EBS. The Ballyhea/Charleville weekly protest, which last Sunday marched for the 47th week, isn't about one or two big bonds, it's about all the bonds, the big and the small, it's about the Promissory Notes, it's about resisting this very basic injustice that's being visited on Ireland on an ongoing basis.

The world of finance knows this debt isn't ours but the ECB can say to our government, 'Pay this money or else', the implied threat - according to Minister Leo Varadkar - being that if we don't, a bomb (metaphorically speaking, we all hope) will go off in Dublin. By any measure, that's extortion, and with menace. Forget all the side-issues - resist this crime against the people of this country, expose it for what it is.

Monday, 23 January 2012

One year ago every Fine Gael and Labour TD proclaimed that it was wrong to pay these failed private bank bonds, accusations of treachery and treason against Fianna Fáil; today we have Leo Varadker, Eamon Gilmore, Brendan Howlin and company telling us that not only is it the right thing to do, it's the ONLY thing to do.

A person of strong principle and conviction will not be easily persuaded that wrong is right - what does this tell us then about all those politicians? A few will make their weasly two-sides-of-the-mouth comments but not one government TD will stand four-square with the people against the ECB on this issue, not one man or woman of principle, not one with strong convictions.

This Wednesdday we will pay the famous €1.25bn Anglo bond (details here - http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/black-wednesday-the-payment-by-ireland-of-e1250m-to-anglo-bondholders/); for 46 weeks and counting, in Ballyhea and Charleville we've been protesting the payment of ALL these bonds. Sure, that's an obscene sum on Wed, but what of the two bonds being paid today, both unsecured? Nearly €31m by Anglo, how much good would that do in this country today?

Thursday, 12 January 2012

No change this week, except 'the big one' - Anglo on Jan 25th, €1.25bn unsecured - is that bit closer. I urge you though - look also at the other bonds, at the last two in the new dozen in particular. Two unsecured bonds, one from AIB, the other Bank of Ireland, and coming to over another €1bn between them. These payments are killing Irish banks, and by extension killing Irish business, which by extension again is killing all growth and with it, our chances of getting out of this hole.

Sunday, 8 January 2012

No change in the dirty dozen for this week but money does begin to change hands in the coming days, starting with a couple of Irish Life & Permanent bonds this Wednesday, one for €8m, the other for a mere €3 - sure what would that get you these days? A few of our senior citizens kept comfortable, who gives a damn about that?

Then there's the €1bn Anglo bond on Jan 22nd, the even more substantial €1.25bn from the same zombie bank three days later, but sure look, if the choice is between paying these failed private bonds or imposing greater and greater pain on everyone in this society, well, there's only one answer really, isn't there?

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Ah January, a new month, a new year, and a very happy month it's going to be for the bondholders of Anglo Irish Bank (and let's not any of us, please, start using its new nom-de-plume). A dead bank, a zombie bank, a bank with now just a single reason for its own continued existence - to pay Irish taxpayers' money on its own failed bonds.

It started on Tuesday of this week, a mere €2,000,0000 paid out to a lucky US$ Bondholder, it continues for the rest of this month, five Anglo bonds in total including a €1bn 'covered' (by us) bond on Jan 22nd but culminating surely in the unsecured €1.25bn bond on Jan 25th.

We've had so many months of national shame since the original sell-out to the ECB by our own government on Nov 2010, that sell-out now being continued by this new government, so what's one more? Still though, over €3bn in bank bonds this month - at what stage do we, the people, shout stop?

About Me

TWITTER: @ballyhea14
Full-time sports journalist with the Irish Examiner since 1998, several years part-time experience prior to that; qualified Land Surveyor/Civil Engineering Technician, worked in those fields from 1971 to 1998, with a few breaks for education thrown into the mix.